The Good Practice Group

Organization type:

Community of practice

Organization status:

Non-profit organization

Description:

The Good Practice Group is a ‘social business‘ that seeks to reduce the burden of human suffering in Sri Lanka and elsewhere through the development of good quality, equitable, accessible and sustainable mental health and psychosocial support services.

Asia

Policy and legislation

Empowerment and service user involvement

Advocacy

Task sharing

Technology

Prevention and promotion

Training, education and capacity building

Children and adolescents

Adults

Families and carers

Humanitarian and conflict health

Disability

All disorders

The Good Practice Group is concerned with the mental health and psychosocial dimensions of human suffering under conditions of crisis and everyday adversity. It works primarily through supporting and mobilizing networks of professionals and other stakeholders to work together on strategic interventions to improve services.

Summary of relevant work:

The main thematic areas of work undertaken by The Good Practice Group are as follows: Mental health & psychosocial support in emergencies (eg. supervision of frontline workers; hosting global online network); Care and protection of children (eg. undertaking systematic evaluations; support to training; leveraging networks); Core mental health services (eg. documentation of good practice; technical support to infrastructure and policy development); Gender-based violence (eg. support to frontline workers; prevalence research); Post-conflict reconstruction and development (eg. psychosocial accompaniment of community initiatives; technical advice and assessment).

The main activities carried out by The Good Practice Group are as follows: Support to services & service providers (eg. supervision of fieldworkers; strategic planning and organizational development); Innovation for practice (eg. development of new financing models; piloting of new methodologies); Training & education (eg. curriculum development; delivery of training; delivery of regional courses); Knowledge production and exchange (eg. conducting research; supporting online platforms; academic outputs); Consultancy & external services (eg. conducting evaluations; providing advisory services; undertaking applied research).

Below is a selection of the contracted and self-financed work undertaken by The Good Practice Group during the period 2010-2014:

Core mental health services:

Studies of the roles and perceived training needs of key mental health & psychosocial support personnel in Sri Lanka

Establishment and documentation of a model kitchen in a long-term stay ward in a mental hospital

Ongoing training and peer supervision of mental health staff in four hospitals in Eastern Sri Lanka

Supporting the establishment of a novel category of community-mental health workers in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka

Design and fundraising for building mental health unit in northern Sri Lanka

Support to designing and development of a mental health trust concept to support public services

Assessment of post-war mental health services in Sri Lanka

Care and protection of children:

Support to establishment and functioning of child rights advocacy network, including advising on disaster response

Support to training of probation and child care officers in the Western Province of Sri Lanka

Galappatti, A. (2010) Research to the Rescue? The need for empirical and theoretical work on wellbeing to shape MHPSS and development interventions in Sri Lanka, in Social Policy Analysis and Research Centre (SPARC) (ed.), Wellbeing and Development in Sri Lanka, University of Colombo.